When Parkinson’s patients are diagnosed with the condition, there are still many unknowns around how the disease will develop and how it will impact their lives. While it is no crystal ball, a new blood test developed at Newcastle University and Cambridge University in the UK is offering hope of better patient management, with an ability to recognize early indicators of cognitive decline, dementia and progression of motor symptoms.
The study involved almost 250 subjects, of which more than 150 were patients recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The idea was to draw blood samples from the Parkinson’s patients and measure certain biomarkers to see how reliably they could serve as predictors of cognitive and motor decline over the following three years.
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